The Unusual Mind of Vincent Shadow (6 page)

He was leaving his failed attempts at inventing behind. He had decided that the move to Minnesota was a chance to start over.
No more silly dreams of becoming a great inventor. He left his notebooks, tools, and inventions hidden away in his secret
lab forever. He had failed as a toy inventor, but at least no one would ever know.

Vincent, Gwen, Stella, and Anna all attended the Minneapolis School of Art and Design now. MSAD was a small K–12 school connected
to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. The students took a few traditional classes, but most of the focus was on art. A typical
day might start with Oil Painting, followed by Ceramics, Metal Sculpture, lunch, Math, Art Ideas, and then a Graphic Design
class at the end of the day. In fact, that was Vincent’s schedule. And he liked all of his classes. All of them except Math.
He loved Art Ideas the most. Mr. Dennis taught Art Ideas and Mr. Dennis was crazy.

“Come on, come on, find a seat,
everybody. We have a lot to talk about today,” Mr. Dennis said, standing on top of his desk.

No one seemed surprised to see Mr. Dennis standing on his desk. No one would have been surprised to walk into the room and
see Mr. Dennis hanging upside down from the ceiling wearing a space suit. Mr. Dennis was crazy and Vincent liked it that way.

“Mike, Gary, John, let’s go. Find a seat.”

“What are we doin’ today, Mr. D? Painting our faces? Acting out art? Throwing things off the roof again?” Gary asked.

“Ooh! Ooh! Can I throw Gary off the roof, Mr. Dennis?” Lori asked.

“No. No. No. We aren’t throwing anything off the roof. The folks in the office weren’t too happy about that. They failed to
see the art. But not to worry, today is far more exciting. Quick, quick, take a seat,” Mr. Dennis said, jumping up and down
on his desk.

“Good. First, the homework,” Mr. Dennis said. “Did everyone bring their sculptures? Good. Good. Please stand up, class, and
bring them forward.”

There were eight kids left in Mr. Dennis’s Art Ideas class. They had started with thirty-two, but most of the kids had switched
classes. Not everyone understood Mr. Dennis the way Vincent did.

Vincent pulled out his sculpture. He had worked hard on it for several weeks. Harder than he had ever worked on a school project.
It was a field of strange-looking snowdrifts made out of glass. It reminded Vincent of one of his mother’s favorite prints
at the Met,
The Great Wave off Kanagawa
. Vincent stood at the end of the line, holding his sculpture. And, as usual, Eleanor was at the front of the line.

“Excellent, Eleanor. Please place it in the bin,” Mr. Dennis said as he pointed to a large garbage can in front of his desk.

“In here?” Eleanor asked as she pointed at the garbage can.

“Yes. Next, please. Oh my, Ariel. That is beautiful. Did you oxidize the copper yourself?”

“Yeah, it took six days of heating it in the oven and basting it with water every twenty minutes,” Ariel said.

“Wonderful, simply wonderful. Please carefully place it in the bin. Next. Very nice, Mike. Please place your art in the bin.
Oh wow, Lori. Did you hand-paint all those beads? Wonderful. Please place it in the bin. Careful now,” Mr. Dennis said as
Lori carefully set her sculpture on top of Mike’s in the garbage can.

“Well done, Chris. Please place it in the bin. Brilliant, Gary! Just brilliant. What is it?” Mr. Dennis asked.

“It’s like, ah, like a bunch of basketball dudes doing kind of, like, a ballet thing,” Gary said.

“In the bin, please,” Mr. Dennis said to Gary.

“Oh, John. Well done, you! Is that Paul Klee’s
Sunset
recreated in metal mesh? Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant. In the bin, please. Carefully, John.”

“Well, well, well, Mr. Shadow. You have outdone yourself this time. Fantastic. Just fantastic. Is that glass?” Mr. Dennis
asked.

“Yes. Hand-painted,” Vincent answered.

“Oh, oh, no. Well, in the bin. Careful now, Mr. Shadow.”

Vincent carefully balanced his glass sculpture on top of the pile of sculptures. He turned to walk back to his desk, but before
he could reach it he heard Mr. Dennis yell—

“FOOBEEZOOBEE!”

Vincent turned to see Mr. Dennis standing waist-deep in the garbage can of broken art. The class was speechless. Ariel and
Chris burst into tears.

Mr. Dennis crawled out of the garbage can. He pulled two large pieces of broken glass from his leg. He was bleeding.

“Didn’t you like the sculptures, Mr. D?” Gary asked.

“They were wonderful. Simply wonderful,” Mr. Dennis said.

Trying to fight back his tears, Chris said, “It took me a whole week to finish that. Why did you break it?”

“It wasn’t finished, Chris. Art is never finished. It is a process. A journey. Your sculpture was beautiful, but it wasn’t
finished. It can’t be finished. Class, class, please listen carefully. I gave each of you the exact same assignment, and you
each came back with very different solutions. Right? And they were all great. They were all perfect.”

“Then why did you break them, Mr. D?” Gary asked.

“I wanted to teach you a lesson. An important, albeit hard, lesson.”

“What lesson is that?” Chris asked. He was clearly getting more upset by the second.

“There is always more than one right answer,” Vincent chimed in.

“Right. Right, Mr. Shadow. Exactly right. There are lots of right answers. And lots of wrong answers. But it is important—it
is imperative that when the muse touches you and you feel you have found the answer, you mustn’t fall in love with it.

“There are lots of right answers. And if you fall in love with the one you have, you will close your eyes to all the other
possible answers. These sculptures were absolutely wonderful. Perfect. Brilliant. All of them. Now, we will do the same assignment
again and I want each and every one of you to come back tomorrow with another right answer.”

Vincent stayed up most of the night
bending, twisting, and turning a stack of wire clothes hangers into his new sculpture. He was tired and his fingers hurt,
but he liked the sculpture. He set it on the kitchen counter and grabbed a bowl from the cupboard.

“What’s up with the wiry thing?” Anna asked.

“It’s homework,” Vincent said as he poured himself a bowl of Cookie Crisp cereal.

“What’s it supposed to be?”

“Art,” Vincent said.

“It’s kind of ugly for art,” Anna said as she chomped on her cereal.

“Is that for Mr. Dennis’s class?” Vibs asked.

“Yep,” Vincent said.

“I thought your sculpture was due yesterday,” Vibs said. “What happened to that glass thing?”

“It broke,” Vincent said without looking up from his bowl. He knew it was pointless to try and explain Mr. Dennis to Vibs.
He finished his cereal and walked to school with Stella. The house his parents had rented was in the heart of Minneapolis,
one block from their new school.

Mr. Dennis was a blur as he flew into the room on a brand new cherry-red Whizzer Board 4000. He kicked the jump pedal and
soared high into the air, clearing his desk by seven or eight inches. He landed on his feet and stomped one foot down onto
the rear flip bar; the board flipped through the air and he caught it with one hand. The class erupted in applause that could
be heard all the way down to Mrs. Schmidt’s office.

“Thank you, thank you. It was nothing, really. Just a little good, old-fashioned footwork.”

“That’s the Whizzer Board 4000!” Gary yelled. “Where did you get it?”

“Why, yes, Gary, this is indeed the Whizzer Board 4000. The radical new board from Whizzer Toys. She is a lot to handle. Fast
as a panther,” Mr. Dennis said. “Do you like it?”

“Yeah, but they’re impossible to get. Where did you get it, Mr. D?”

“My cousin sent it to me,” Mr. Dennis said as he handed the Whizzer Board 4000 to Gary.

“Who’s your cousin?” Vincent asked.

“Well, I’m glad you asked. But first, where is Chris? He missed my big entrance. Should I do it again when he gets here?”

“No need, Mr. D. Chris switched classes,” Gary said as he stroked the skateboard.

“Ah, and then there were seven. Shame, shame, what a shame. Well then, Mr. Shadow, the answer to your question is Howie,”
Mr. Dennis said as he started to write on the whiteboard.

“Oh?” Vincent had no idea what Mr. Dennis was talking about, but then he rarely knew exactly what Mr. Dennis was talking about.

“Oh, you kids probably know him better as Howard G. Whiz, the master toymaker.”

“HOWARD G. WHIZ IS YOUR COUSIN?” Vincent shouted.

“Yes,” Mr. Dennis said as he finished writing the words “Annual Whizzer Toy Contest” on the board.

“Do you know him?” Lori asked.

“Do you know your cousins?” Mr. Dennis asked her.

“Yeah. Well, not the ones that live out in Washington. But I know my other cousins,” Lori said.

“Right, right. Well I do know Howie, I mean Howard, and every year he has a toy contest. And every year I have my students
enter the contest,” Mr. Dennis said.

“Do the kids ever win?” Gary asked.

“No. No. I’ve never had a student win, but I’ve never had a class this large before. So, maybe this is the year. Maybe, just
maybe. But dear, Gary, it isn’t really about winning and it really isn’t about the toys, the inventions, or the trip to New
York. It’s—”

“Trip to New York, Mr. D?” Gary interrupted.

“Yes, yes, didn’t I mention that? Students from all over the world enter the contest. Howie looks through all the invention
ideas and selects a handful of kids to build their inventions and bring them to the big Toy Fair in New York. There the kids
get a chance to demonstrate their inventions on stage, and the winner is selected.”

“What does the winner get?” Gary asked.

“A million dollars?” John shouted.

Mr. Dennis grabbed the Whizzer Board 4000 from Gary’s hands and held it above his head. He pushed down on the turbo pedal
and the board let out a hefty grunt as the wheels spun furiously. “This, my friends, was invented by a kid just like you,
sitting in a classroom just like this. The winner gets to spend the summer at Whizzer Toys inventing toys with my cousin Mr.
Howard G. Whiz.”

Vincent lay in bed with a pillow over his
head. Gwen was doing a late night load of laundry and Vincent knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep until the spin cycle was
complete.

He was devastated. He had spent his entire life trying to be a toy inventor. Now he had a chance to get his inventions in
front of one of his favorite inventors and he had no ideas. He had no idea where his ideas even came from, but he wished one
would come to him now. He also wished he hadn’t left his notebooks sealed away in his lab.

Vincent remembered reading all about Mr. Whiz buying the Tesla artifacts. Clearly, anyone willing to pay ten million dollars
for the Tesla inventions had to be a big Tesla fan. Maybe if Vincent invented a Tesla-like toy it would get Mr. Whiz’s attention.
Tesla had invented the world’s first remote-controlled toy. Maybe Vincent could create a new type of remote-controlled toy.